>> lieutenant governor brad owen, thank you very much for joining us tonight during this very difficult time for your state. >> you bet. thank you. good evening. i'm chris matthews back in washington. let me start tonight with this. they died at sea. every passenger and crewman on that plane. but how? in a mighty explosion? did a nanosecond of horror convert a routine flight into a seven-hour zombie flight down into the indian ocean? or did a visitor to the cockpit pull the plug for the final hours of their lives? all we know now is how it began with the last words from the first officer a little after one income the morning march 8th and how it ended according to today's fateful verdict slipping

into the south indian ocean a little after 8:00 a.m. that same morning. what did happen on that plane? what is there for relatives and the beloved to contemplate for the rest of their lives and for us who travel by air to imagine, to consider each time we head skyward? yes, kuala lumpur, we have a problem there is just so much we don't know about malaysia airlines flight 370. can a 777 just disappear? can we be left not knowing what happened even when it was still flying? robert hager is a former nbc aviation correspondent. and captain john cox is an nbc aviation analyst. he was a commercial pilot for 25 years. it wasn't devastating news for the families of passengers on board flight 370. early today the malaysian prime minister told the world that sophisticated new analysis from a british satellite firm concluded the malaysian jet went down somewhere in the southern indian ocean. let's watch.

>> using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort, they have been able to shed more light on 370's flight path. it is therefore with deep sadness and regret that i must inform you that according to this new data, likely 307 ended in the southern indian ocean. >> well, bob hager, we just heard the verdict there it seems conclusive. it tells us seven hours after the plane last contact, left their radio transmission with the ground that everyone died. the question i guess has to be this. what was it like for the passengers?

was there a sudden cataclysm in which the conversion of a normal flight into a just horrific made no sense, all unable to breathe or was it along period of terroristic kind of activity on the plane? how do we know the difference between those two profound different realities? >> you don't. we have nothing to guide us one way or the other. and by the way, my own opinion is that after kind of dismissing the possibility of some natural catastrophe or mechanical catastrophe on board, i think it's time to go back and look at that a lot more closely because such a long period of time has passed. but what you do know is on the end of this flight, the period where it's out there in the indian ocean, it's traveling on a straight line, and it just travels for hours on that straight line, which suggests that at that point the cockpit crew, whoever is left of the cockpit crew would be incapacitated or dead more

likely if it was a decompression or heavy smoke or something like that, which also suggests that mercifully the passengers might have been dead for that whole stretch out over the indian ocean as well. the final end there, you were asking about that, and we don't know this, but the way a plane typically comes down when it runs out of fuel, and that must be what happened here is eventually it ran out of fuel. if one engine goes first and then the other one, it's apt to spiral down there. is a scenario under which it could come down more gradually. but i think the spiral is a better chance. in which case the wreckage would break up and you would get the small pieces, if indeed that's what we're seeing out there by satellite. >> captain cox, are you of that same verdict as of this moment that it was cataclysmic event around 1:00 when they lost contact rather than a long period of chaos and hell on a plane that may have been going on for hours?

>> well, let's go back to a couple of things. one we don't have any evidence either way, and we need to be real careful about not overrunning the evidence. let's talk about the spiral that you just mentioned. and we have reason to believe the autopilot was engaged. even if one engine quit before the other, this is a very, very sophisticated autopilot system. it's going to maintain the track even with one engine out and one still operation. so the concept or idea that this spiral thing, that it began to spiral is not consistent with what you would find what the airplane would do this. is one of the most sophisticated jets in the air. it is a very capable airplane consequently, the autopilot is capable of keeping the airplane in flight. and then as the second engine fails and the generator loss occurs, then and only then is the autopilot going to disconnect there is a number of pieces in here there is a lot of speculation. but we need to be real careful

about staying focused on the data we and not the speculation beyond it. >> well, did you accept the verdict of the prime minister today based upon the british experts that the plane flew for all those hours from 1:00 to 8:00 roughly a.m. into the south indian ocean? >> this data, the fact that they had the air accident investigation branch of the uk recheck this analysis and concur with it before sending it to the malaysian government, this gives that data very high credibility. the aaib is one of the top investigative agencies in the world. so for them to say this data is good, the credibility of is absolutely very high. so, yes, i believe that the data that was released today from inmarsat and this is high quality. >> i have an admonition not to speculate, but we're left with very little information, captain cox, and that is that the flight

went on for seven hours. my question to you, could a automatic pilot procedure keep a plane flying on a straight line for seven hours without anybody alive on the plane? a zombie flight, if you will. could that happen? >> is it possible? absolutely, yes. no question. >> so there is no dead man switch like in railroads. if you're dead, the plane keeps flying? >> if the entire crew is incapacitated, the autopilot is engaged and the flight management computer has a path or route to fly, it will fly that. if it doesn't, if it hits what is known as a discontinuity, it will fly a heading and continue to fly that until fuel exhaustion. >> okay. let me go back to bob hager i've known forever. this is the veteran's question of your career. i don't know how you do this. we keep hearing, or we did for days in the analysis we were getting is you couldn't have a catastrophic moment that shut down every possible instrument of communication and all the data, all the voice, no way to communicate back to command or

where you just left in fact. in one instant, all communication cut off and there is a catastrophic event that renders everyone dead, i thought when the depressurization -- they always say on an airplane that the little masks are going to come down instantly like in a car. you're going to get the cushion. it happens automatically. it is true that the little masks come down automatically if there is a depressurization? if so, why weren't the people breathing them? >> i don't know the answer to that on whether they come down automatically. >> they do. >> but john says he does. let's have him take a crack at that then. >> captain, how do you have a catastrophic moment where nobody is allowed to live more than a second longer to get on a radio or to communicate? the plane is still flying but everybody is dead instantly. >> we don't know that. first answer to your question,

passenger service units are automatic when the cabin altitude reaches 14,000 feet. the door opens, the masks come down. that's automatic. when you extend them, you start a chemical process in an oxygen generator, and they will give you around 12 to 14 minutes of oxygen. and the idea is to get the airplane down to breathable air. that's how that system works. the pilots have a different system. they have face masks and oxygen masks that go on together. and it's a very tight seal. and the pilots are trained to put those on at the first sign that the cabin altitude is climbing above 10,000 feet which is where they get the first cabin altitude warning there is a useful consciousness time at 35,000 feet depending on the individual of somewhere between 30 to 45, maybe as long as 60 seconds. and the oxygen masks for the

pilots must be capable of being in place within five seconds. it's a certification requirement. put all of that together, the pilots put these pressure-fitting masks on, they can breathe, and they have much longer. they probably have 35 or 40 minutes of oxygen at that time. so we don't know that a depressurization occurred. if it did, there is crew oxygen available and there is passenger oxygen that is available automatically. what happened beyond that, we don't know. >> so we're still left with the conundrum. if they were alive, even for that 30 some minutes and 14 minutes for the passengers, they didn't use that time to communicate with anyone. >> it's even a little more complex than that, chris. if you look at the fact that they didn't communicate on any of the radios, they may have failed or chosen to be unused. we don't know. the transponder ceased to

function shortly after the last communication. it could have experienced an electrical problem. the component could have failed or it could have been switched off. we don't know. but what we do know is that the data link system known as acars was stopped from transmitting data, but the unit itself continued to talk to the satellites. that takes specialized knowledge and it takes some deliberate key strokes into the computer system to disable its ability to transmit data. that's a deliberate act by someone with knowledge. and so that is an important distinction and difference between all the other forms of the communication. >> right. >> and the acars system. >> but chris -- >> still with the position that it was a catastrophic moment? it seems that that would require a loft coincidences for that to be the case. >> this -- we have a lot of holes in every scenario that we've looked at.

none of them tie all the pieces together. and the holes in every scenario are quite large there is a lot of information to be gained here. >> bob, put it together. >> nothing makes sense. no matter what you theorize on, on whether it was some kind of a murder suicide or terrorism or whatever in the cockpit or you go the other way with a catastrophic incident, nothing makes rhyme or reason because we don't have enough information. >> i keep finding myself go back to human behavior the way the prime minister started his assessment days ago. gentlemen, thank you so much. coming up, the next step in the investigation. we move on finding the wreckage. the hunt for the black boxes, the search for answer. will we ever learn what happened through the technology that is still out there in the water? plus, many of you remember that old ad when ef hutton talks. when nate silver talks, people listen. right now they're hearing him

say the republicans are favored to take back the u.s. senate this november. but for how long? maybe just two years. and that's the smart way -- what is the smart way now to understand russia's vladimir putin? he is not hitler, he is not stalin, he is not khrushchev. but who he is? michael mcfaul, the former u.s. ambassador to the russian federation, he joins us later. he'll tell us who he is. and let me finish with some "hardball" questions of how to make this democracy of ours work for this country. this is "hardball," the place for politics. i always say be the man with the plan but with less energy, moodiness, and a low sex drive, i had to do something. i saw my doctor. a blood test showed it was low testosterone, not age. we talked about axiron the only underarm low t treatment that can restore t levels to normal in about two weeks in most men. axiron is not for use in women or anyone younger than 18 or men with prostate or breast cancer. women, especially those who are or who may become pregnant, and children should avoid contact where axiron is applied as unexpected signs of puberty in children or changes in body hair

or increased acne in women may occur. report these symptoms to your doctor. tell your doctor about all medical conditions and medications. serious side effects could include increased risk of prostate cancer, worsening prostate symptoms, decreased sperm count, ankle, feet or body swelling, enlarged or painful breasts, problems breathing while sleeping and blood clots in the legs. common side effects include skin redness or irritation where applied, increased red blood cell count, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, and increase in psa. ask your doctor about axiron. how much of a challenge will it be to find the wreckage of malaysia flight 370? take a look at this graphic. it shows the depths of the indian ocean in that area where suspicious debris has been spotted. the ocean depth at its shallowest there is about 4,000 feet. other parts are 23,000 feet. and on the bottom there you can see the relative heights of landmarks like the world trade center, the empire state building, the eiffel tower and

the washington monument. they all look pretty small versus the tail height of a boeing 777, just under 60 feet. and you want to take a closer look at the graphic, go to our website. we'll be right back.

welcome back to "hardball." while the malaysian prime minister today delivered the tragic news that flight 370 was lost in the indian ocean, the mystery of what happened to that doomed flight remains wide open there are different strands of the investigation still ongoing. on the one hand, searchers continue trying to find debris in one of the most remote parts of the world you. can you see all that water down there, the southern indian ocean. today chinese and australian aircraft said they spotted suspicious objects in the water out there. but so far there has been no actual confirmation that comes from the jet actually. the next crucial step will be finding the data recorder, the black box of course that will offer clues about what happened. the other strand remains looking into the background of the

pilots, the crew, the passengers on board that plane. the fbi's involved in searching the files of the pilot's in-home flight simulator right now. the question today, with any of these strands, are we any closer at all to knowing what happened in the early morning of march 8th on board flight 370? daniel rose was an aviation attorney and was a pilot. and evy poumpouras is now a security expert. thank you now for joining us. dana, i want to start with you in terms of the black box search? is this a need until a haystack finding a box that you can pick up in the middle of the ocean at the bottom of the ocean? it doesn't float. it goes to the bottom and the water down there is what, 23,000 feet deep in some cases? >> that's right, chris. and, you know, we're running out of time in terms of getting any assistance from the box itself, which has this pinger that emits a ping to help locate it.

so, you know, we have to find the wreckage first. we have to validate that the wreckage is actually from the aircraft, which we seem to be getting closer to. but then we have to work our way backwards once we identify the area where there is aircraft wreckage and that means the plane crashed over a week ago, probably almost two weeks by the time you find it. >> how close do you have to be to a location to pick it up electronically? >> you have to be two miles. and that's on land. you know, if you're under the water, you're dealing with all these thermal layers and makes it even tougher you. could be more than two miles -- the black box could be more than two miles deep into the water. so it could be very difficult. i think the more likely scenario is going to be identifying the debris field, where the plane impacted and came to rest in large part, and then scour that area to see if you can find the black box using submersibles.

>> what is your hunch about how long mankind -- i'm impressed any time countries get along with each other. we have the chinese and the australians working together. we're these flights going out. it's very expensive to go out there and kill all that gasoline. i wonder how long they're going to keep doing this? >> i don't think this is going to stop any time soon. i don't think anybody is going to say that's it, we're giving up. things are going to dwindle down over time in terms of resources. but i think the australians have taken charge and really gotten involved. we're certainly giving all our assets involved. and i think it's just a question of time before we actually find it. >> dana, bottom line, you probably listened to the earlier segment about where i'm trying to find out what happened in that plane in the first hours, minutes after we first lost contact with the ground. do you think the black box will tell us whether there was a skirmish on the plane? terrorist activity? will we be able to get that out of a electronic machine? >> i doubt it.

the cockpit voice recorder only records 30 minutes back. you're never going to hear what happened seven hours, three hours, five hours. and the flight data recorder records two hours back. you may get information about what systems were working and not, but i don't think you're ever going to get hard evidence of a deliberate act, and i think the indication is going to be that it was some type of a mechanical failure. >> the question i have goes back to this, how everything. we're talking with captain cox and bob hager how everything seemed to be switched off. all of the sudden at one something, march 8th in the morning everything got switched off there wasn't any more acars, any more voice, anything. and all that happened and then everybody was dead. and yet they tell you if there is a loss of pressure, would that show up in the black box, that the masks do come down, the pilots have their masks on professionally. they're able to survive for 35 minutes.

the passengers able to survive for 14 minutes in the plastic things that come down there. was a survival opportunity taken there. why wasn't it taken? >> you're not going to get that information from the black box. but you are going to be able to piece together some information what was the failure that caused it. for instance, we handled the last boeing inflight fire case. and what is particular about inflight fires is they're notoriously random. so it is a sequence of events that could knock out systems that don't otherwise logically come into play. for instance, in the last one, the oxygen system was knocked out. without the oxygen system, that could really explain how this plane flies along for seven hours. >> well, let's go to evy now. thank you for joining us. give me the questions in terms of your mind, the passenger manifest, the crew manifest, everything we don't know about who was on the plane. >> we're very focused on finding

the plane for obvious reasons and to locate survivors if that was even a possibility. but we seem to have shifted away from the other investigative leads that we have. for example, you brought up the simulate they're the fbi is a looking at. what happened with that? the backgrounds of the people on the plane. we haven't heard as much with regard to that. the pilots. what happened to the pilots' cell phone. what you need to do when you investigate something like this, you have to look at everything and work on everything in tandem. you can't just focus on finding the plane and that's that. you have to look at the other components and give them the appropriate amount of time and effort and resource. for one, we have a manifest. we have names. who are these people? just because you put some names in a database check and you see that somebody doesn't have a significant criminal record or somebody is not on a terrorist watch list, it does not mean that they're not capable of doing something nefarious on the flight. you need to do a proper forensic profile on all individuals, not just those on the plane, not just the passengers, not just the pilots, but also ground crewmembers. the thing is, we haven't heard too much than. and we haven't heard about the

simulator or the hard drives. what about that? >> anyway, for family of passengers who have waited now for two and a half weeks without word, today's news was devastating, of course. some of them were told by representatives of malaysian airlines. others received text messages, and still others learned about it when the prime minister of malaysia spoke today. in beijing, cnbc was there. today she is here with some very raw reporting. let's listen. >> now, they're all streaming out of the room. i'm not sure if you can hear them. you can hear the devastation. hold on. [ crying ] >> the security tried to keep the journalists away right now from the families. and the families are all now moving into a different

location. but they've obviously are in a complete state of disbelief after finally getting this news that their families are now lost forever. >> forever. meanwhile, tom wood, the brother of one of the american victims, philip wood told reporters today the news from the malaysian prime minister offered at least a little bit of closure. that was his word. let's watch. >> we've been praying for some answers. this is, you know, it's not the answer we wanted. but it's an answer. and it does help to know that we know something, you know. we know the plane went down. and we want to know more. and hopefully we do learn more. >> well, daniel, and then evy, i was stunned to read the press release put out by the chinese government basically blaming the malaysian government for the death of these people because of the manner in which they reported the information. that seems a bit extreme to put it lightly, daniel? >> i agree with that, chris.

certainly this investigation and certainly the families have not been handled in kind of an exemplary fashion. but it's certainly not intentional. but i can't imagine a more traumatic and difficult experience for these families to go through. and then yet after all these weeks of bad information coming out to be ultimately given the ultimate news about their loved ones in such a fashion is really troubling. >> evy, i think people naturally want to have someone to blame when there is a horror. i've seen this so many times in news stories. you to go somewhere with your anger. you can't just blame god. you got to blame somebody, somewhere it seems. >> i think there is a lot of pain here, significantly because there has been so many contradictions and changes and misinformation. so these families, they've been on such an emotional roller coaster ride. and then just there has been

some mishandling by the malaysian government and the way they dealt with this. but to blame them for everything, i think that's a bit harsh. but at the same time, you look at something like getting a text that your loved ones didn't survive, i can't imagine what that's like. you have to almost question yourself where is the logic behind that? that's not what these people deserved, a text message. >> i agree. >> you need to be present. and you can't do this to these people after what they have been through. it's very sad. and it's also indicative somehow of the way malaysia has handled this incident. you kind of see it consistently throughout. all these little red flags, these things they've been doing and you question how are they making these decision. >> we know what countries are judged by. they're judged by how they treat individual people, not the big numbers. thank you, daniel rose. and we're seeing here how a country treats its people. evy poumpouras, thank you very much. we'll be right back after this.

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ms. clinton, if you don't represent women in politics in america as future president, who will?

>> and also to add to that, when you do run for president, will you reuse the old clinton campaign lawn signs? >> do you still have yours, jimmy? >> probably do, yes. >> back to "hardball" that was the $64,000 question. the clinton global initiative forum held in tempe, arizona saturday night. it was a pretty laid back evening for the clintons with jimmy kimmel providing plenty of the comic relief. it didn't take much to read between the laugh lines. here is her answer to the now famous question, a little prodding from kimmel and an encouraging audience out there. >> i am very much concerned about the direction of our country. and it's not just who runs for office, but what they do when they get there and how we bring people together, and

particularly empower young people so that we can tackle some of these hard decisions we've just been talking about. >> she wants a answer. >> well, i'm getting to it. i'm getting to it. i'm getting to it. so let me say this. that give me your name and number. >> i will proudly run your campaign. >> i like your attitude, your confidence. thank you. i'm obviously thinking about all kinds of decisions. >> the key freeze there was give me your name and number. with a reception like that, i would say all signs point to yes. of course, the event wasn't complete without kimmel himself getting in an obligatory selfie with the former first family. and in addition to having the last laugh of the evening at chelsea's expense. here it is. >> should you end up back in the white house, will chelsea get her old room back, or will you convert that to a home gym? >> you're throwing me under the

bus now too? >> anyway, up next, polling guru nate silver says republicans are slight favorites to win control of the u.s. senate. no big surprise there. but the democrats of course deny the doom saying. and that's ahead. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics.

welcome back to "hardball." the data-driven political forecaster nate silver is out there with his 2014 midterm election predictions. and democrats aren't too happy with those predictions. silver predicted that the republicans have a 60%, that's a pretty good chance of taking control of the u.s. senate this year. they need six seats to do it. they say they'll probably do it. he says republicans are heavily favored to capture four of the seats held by democrats. here they are. arkansas, west virginia, south dakota, and montana. no big surprises there. he says an additional four seats currently held by democrats are what we calls toss-ups, louisiana, mary landrieu, and kay hagan, mark begich up in alaska, and an open seat from carl evans' departure in michigan. he predicts only two seats held by the republicans up there in kentucky and down there in georgia are possible democratic wins.

they could be pickups there. but he says they're unlikely. hmm. well, the democrats responded with rapid-fire, pointing out that silver named his underdogs harry reid and both won. and montana's jon tester and heidi heitkamp, both of them won. so he is not always right. in august of 2012, silver forecasted the 61% likelihood that republicans would win enough seats back then to claim the majority. three months later, democrats went on to win 55 seats. and that was from a spokesman from the democratic senatorial campaign committee who is putting cold water on nate silver. chris cillizza i think is better than nate silver. >> breaking. >> and an msnbc contributor. and jonathan capehart is an opinion writer for "the washington post" and msnbc contributor. you know, when you go to vegas as i used to do once in a while, chris and jonathan, the one way you can surely lose your shirt is to have a system. if you're just out there betting, you probably know when to quit. but if you got a system, you're convinced you got it figured out, chris.

and does nate have a system here? is he just following? what you and i have been watching for months, he has been busy with sports. we know which ones are tough ones like west virginia. we know how tough they're going to be. your thoughts about the new listing. >> yeah, i mean, look. i don't think in defense of nate, i don't think nate came out and said that he had reinvented the wheel by saying that republicans had a better than even chance of winning back the senate, as you point out and he is aware. independent handicappers, people like charlie cook, they've been saying things are moving in that direction. it's a percentage based on a model. he is a modeler. he puts them into an algorithm. it produces out these numbers. as anyone who follows politics closely would say, chris, it's based on the polling information and the algorithm. so the more polling information you have, the better results. >> is he really talking about

the fact of expectations about turnouts in a midterm election and the kinds of people -- let me go to jonathan. >> sure. >> it seems like that's the big algorithm, the big number you would be looking for. if this were a presidential year, i think he would be much more careful about predicting demise for the democrats. >> look at nate silver's report. he goes into what were all the factors that led to the assumptions that he made today. one of them is presumed turnout. democratic party base usually in off-year elections fades. there is that. there is the polling as chris mentioned there are a whole lot of other factors. and nate, to his credit, says look. there is a slight chance republicans can take the senate. and all of these things can change. and then later on when we have more data, then we will use the algorithm that made him famous. the reason why democrats are all flipped out and republicans are

probably very cheered by his report today is because of nate's success in predicting the presidential election. but as you accurately pointed out in your intro, nate got it wrong more than once when it came to senate races, particularly heidi heitkamp in north carolina. >> let's go to something you and chris cover completely all the time. the quality of campaigns. i'm looking at the ads. as you mentioned in your piece today, the ads for mark begich up in alaska. a good string of really good ads. a very popular front a candidate puts on in the campaign year can change everything. mary landrieu has been beating the judge for how many times has she gotten through difficult years because people like the landrieu name. they like the history of that family down there. >> look, this is the difficult part about modeling. my belief is in politics we should take it the same way that we do in sports, which is you can't just rely on sort of the scouts in baseball. my eye tells me this. and the numbers aren't conclusive either you. combine the two.

i would say you make a good point with begich and landrieu, chris. it's hard to quantify this. her brother is lieutenant governor of the state, mitch landrieu. in alaska, mark begich was the mayor of anchorage, alaska. it's hard to quantify how much does that -- we know the people. we know the landrieus of louisiana. we know the begichs of alaska. they're not national democrats. it's hard to figure out how much that should count for. and that's why they run the campaigns. >> and i think in the end, people do vote in senate races more than -- especially states like idaho, utah, states that are out there all by themselves, they don't have big cities. they focus on who the senator is and they know who their senator. >> right. and when it comes to mary landrieu, she has been able to eek it out because part of it is her standing within the african american community. >> that's so true. >> she, if mary landrieu wins yet again, if she squeaks through yet again, it will be

because african american voters came out in the ways that they did in previous races and maybe even to the numbers that they did in 2008 and 2012. >> she almost looks like new orleans there is something about her that evokes new orleans, that family, the face, the whole look. >> that's how she has won in the past. >> they have been around forever. and maybe edward edwards as well -- edwin edwards. i think he may have reached the end. even if democrats do lose control of the senate, it is important it would only be temporarily. the gopers probably need to pick up a neighborhood of eight to ten seats or even nine to ensure themselves a fair shot of holding the senate for more than two years because there are 23 republicans up compared to 10 back in 2016. much like the geography of the senate map in 2014 favors republicans, there are a lot of republican-held seats and traditionally democratic seats in 2016. and those states include, this is where the democrats are going to do well, wisconsin, illinois, ohio, pennsylvania, and new hampshire.

but you know what? i still think it could be a disaster for the democrats because if barack obama spends the last two years of his historic presidency without any congressional influence, republicans in both houses, controlling both houses, sending bills to him one after another that they have put together and agreed upon and send to him for his signature, it could be a pretty distressing last two years for his presidency. >> the one thing i'll say, chris, these things move in cycles. so the class of 2014 is the class of 2008, obviously a very good year to be a democrat. presidential year. president obama wins overwhelmingly. 2014 not so. this 2016 class is the class of 2010. it's harder to win mathematically in illinois, in new hampshire, in pennsylvania, in wisconsin in a year that we expect presidential level turnout. those are states that barack obama has won in 2008 and 2012

where 2 democratic nominee for president whoever it is. the higher turnout the more to their partisan nature they act. a mark kirk in illinois is going to have a very, very tough race if he decides to run. >> crazy horse said to george armstrong custer, some day your people will outnumber us, but not today. thank you, chris cillizza. that was the battle of the bighorn. is there anything the president should be doing when it comes to approaching vladimir putin? interesting fellow, and perhaps stages. we'll see. michael mcfaul, the former ambassador to russia with us. he is the best expert on this guy. he is coming here live. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

"the new york times" reporting today that the first investigation into what went wrong in new jersey governor chris christie's office clears the governor of any wrongdoing. but lawyers who conducted this investigation were commissioned by christie himself and come with a law firm that has close ties to his administration. what is more, they were not able to interview the three people with the heart of the scandal, former deputy chief of staff, bridget anne kelly, christie's ally at the port authority david wildstein and former campaign manager bill stepien. new jersey taxpayers picked up the million dollar tab for that investigation. we'll be right back.

europe and america are united in our support of the ukrainian government and the ukrainian people. we're united in imposing a cost on russia for its actions so far. >> welcome back to "hardball." that's president obama today in the netherlands where he's working to solidify european resolve to punish russia's vladimir putin for seizing crimea. toward that end, the leaders of what is now the g-7 late today said the russia has been suspended from what had been the g-8 because of its activities in ukraine. and in today's "new york times" former ambassador to russia michael mcfaul lays out what we're up against. "this new era crept up on us because we did not fully win the cold war. communist faded. the soviet union disappeared.

russian power diminished. the collapse of the soviet order did not lead smoothly to a transition of democracy in markets inside russia or russia's integration into the west." former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. it's an honor to have you on the program. nuance is all important. comparisons to other leaders like hitler don't help me at all. i see a pattern, though, not about hitler but this concern about language. i think english is a good unifier. under the law. it's a good unifier. i see the power of russian and the russian language in ukraine and the way it has been used to regather the old soviet order in this case with crimea coming back to russia by plebiscite. do you think like hitler the land will not be enough in this case, that putin will try to get more of ukraine where it's russian speaking and perhaps look for an easement between moscow and crimea through ukraine?

>> well, it's a dangerous time. any time you make people choose in terms of their identities, that's always dangerous. right? i mean, you can speak multiple languages, have multiple ethnic identities, live in ukraine but want to be part of europe. be an irish-american but live in america. speak french, german, italian. when you force people to choose, those are dangerous times. that's what putin's doing right now in his reaching out to ethnic russians in eastern ukraine. >> and do you think he'll reach out militarily? >> right now, i don't think he's planning an invasion. i really don't. i listened to his speech closely last week. i don't think that is what's on his mind. here's the scenario i worry about. ethnic ukrainians and ethnic russians start killing each other. some bar brawl in donetsk starts and escalates and the violence escalates. the government there, the police force is not able to control that violence. that's a moment when i think

putin will be tempted to get involved. and that would be disastrous. >> well, hitler in his case went around instigating those kinds of crises within austria, for example. he would create a problem then go in to deal with it by invading the country. do you think he'll be aggressive in that regard? would he instigate bar brawls in donetsk? >> well, i just remind you one of the miracles of the collapse of the soviet union is we didn't have that. remember? there are almost 30 million people that lived beyond the borders of russia, ethnic russians. it was relatively peaceful. now we're starting to see signs of something different, and i do not exclude the fact that russian secret police might go in to try to instigate those kinds of conflicts, yes. >> how much power does putin have? i've always wondered back in the -- you're probably an expert on this. in what point of the history of the soviet union did the premiers or party chairs lose the ability to kill somebody they didn't like, knock people off or put them away in some

prison somewhere? is that still a power within the hands of this guy? could he kill people? can he -- does he have that autocratic power? >> well, there's no question that he's weak in democratic constraints on his power over the last 15 years and especially over the last 2 years. remember that. he's been in power 15 years. that consolidates a lot of power, and when you rally people around the flag like with this recent annexation of crimea, that makes you popular. he doesn't have a record of killing people, but arresting people, political prisoners, something that we did not have for many, many years. that's come back under the putin era, yes. >> is there any way we can treat him in a way that will influence him? or is it all up to him? >> i'm not optimistic, frankly. i think it was right for president obama to raise the specter of more serious sanctions should russia go into

eastern ukraine. he's very explicit about that, that he was going to sanction companies and banks as opposed to just individuals. >> yeah. >> but our record of coercing and deterring russian power in eastern europe over the last 70 years is not very good. >> ambassador, thank you so much. honor to you on. michael mcfaul, former u.s. ambassador to russia. we'll be right back after this. . so i've totally gone pro with crest pro-health. go pro with crest pro-health. the first time i tried crest pro-health it felt different, i mean it felt clean. crest pro-health protects all these areas dentists check most. she's going to do backflips when she sees this. 4 out of 5 dentists confirmed these pro-health products helped maintain a professional clean. i am extremely impressed. i guess that's what happens when you go pro. go pro with crest pro-health. excuse me, did you say you want to see my teeth, oh i'm sorry.

let me end tonight with the week i just spent teaching at the university of san francisco. you know what young people want to know?

they want to know how we can make this democracy of ours work for the country, how we can get good people to lead us, find people who ready to be good people. when does hardball politics become dirt ball? that's a great question. the only answer i could come up with is the truth. when politicians lie about each other, that's dirt ball. when they try to suppress the vote because they can't win the public support, that's dirt ball, isn't it? how do we control the power of big money in politics? that's the hard one, isn't it? because it's money. if money has a louder voice, a bigger role than the regular voter, what do you honestly tell the regular voter in his or her power to guide our country in the best direction? how do we bring morality to politics? that's a great question. the best answer i've been able to come up with which i shared with the class out at usf is this. if you don't enter public life with a strong moral sense of what is right and wrong, you won't develop once you're in there. you have to come in strong and sure because all the pressure once you're in is about ambition. but if you do come in with a strong moral sense, you'll do okay.

in fact, you'll do fine because you'll know when you're ready to stand up to people and the pressures of those who don't come in with a good moral compass. that's going to get you through. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. the families of the 239 passengers and crew aboard malaysia flight mh-370 not to mention the millions across the globe who have watched, wrapped and anxious, hoping somehow the missing boeing 777 had touched down safely somewhere received the sad, final news today. malaysian authorities announced they have concluded beyond any reasonable doubt that the plane did, indeed, go town in the remotest part of the indian ocean near the location where satellite data as well as search aircraft have spotted possible debris. >> this is a remote location far